Man falsely accused in Dodger Stadium beating tells how it changed his life

He was jailed after being falsely accused of beating San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow on opening day at Dodger Stadium last year.

People know this.

When Ramirez attended the Dodgers' first home game this season on April 10, strangers greeted him with "You're the guy..."

Meaning: You're the bald guy with tattoos who was jailed but did not assault the Giants fan.

Some fans asked Ramirez for his autograph - one on a hat, another on a baseball - or to have their picture taken with him. A television crew caught up with Ramirez in a hallway and taped an interview for the evening news. Of the all the 56,000 fans who bought tickets for opening day at Dodger Stadium, it's possible that none were treated as well.

"It was interesting," Ramirez said.

Lesser known is why Ramirez was bald, jailed for 10 months, and is not guilty of beating Bryan Stow.

On April 1, 2011, he and his girlfriend were at an East Hollywood apartment belonging to one of Ramirez's friends when they left on foot to book a room at the nearby Comfort Inn. They stopped at the Shell station next door on Vermont Avenue to stock up on supplies, including a razor blade. Ramirez needed to trim his sideburns.

Later, in the hotel bathroom, Ramirez messed up the trim, according to the testimony he gave his lawyers. Seeing the damage, he felt he had no choice but to shave his head.

His girlfriend, Denise Piccione, disagreed. They fought. Ramirez shaved his head anyway.

By the time they checked out of the Comfort Inn, Ramirez was a bald Latino man with a moustache and goatee - just like the man witnesses said assaulted Stow one day before the couple checked in to the hotel, but unlike the man pictured on Ramirez's driver's license.

Ray Lara, the private investigator hired by Ramirez's lawyers, found in these details the silver bullet the Los Angeles Police Department did not find.

"In talking to the manager there (at the Comfort Inn), if the individual he rented his room to ... was bald and the (driver's) license had hair, would you question him? He said `definitely.' When they got here, nothing aroused his suspicion," Lara said.

Further proof was uncovered a few days after Ramirez was arrested May 22, 2011. Lara went to the Shell station and found surveillance tape of Piccione and Ramirez - with hair - buying the razor a day after the Stow beating. A bald man had assaulted Bryan Stow.

The case against Ramirez, which practically hinged on his resemblance to one of Stow's attackers, had begun to fall apart within days of his arrest.

Still the public vilification of Ramirez did not abate - in part because he remained in prison, in part because he was widely known as the only suspect in a violent assault, in part because of his background.

He once belonged to a gang in East Los Angeles (no longer, Ramirez insists). His neck is covered in tattoos.

His criminal record includes the attempted robbery of an elderly woman in 1999; Ramirez contends that the woman was a witness to an altercation between he and three gang members, not the victim of a robbery attempt.

"You get to know the guy," Lara said, "he's just a guy with tattoos."

Actually, police did find a bullet. They found a gun, too, in the East Hollywood apartment where Ramirez was staying with a friend when he was taken into custody. (The gun was in a hamper, Lara said, while the bullet was in the kitchen.)

It just so happened that Ramirez was on parole for allegedly discharging a firearm into the ground at a New Year's party in 2005, the terms of which forbade him access to a gun. Since police found a gun in the apartment - Ramirez insists he didn't know it was there - he was brought in for a hearing.

For violating the terms of his parole, Ramirez was sentenced to 10 months at the Donovan Correctional Facility, a state prison in San Diego. Ramirez was never charged in the Stow beating; ordinarily a suspect would have to be charged within 72 hours of his arrest, or else be released from police custody.

Still, for violating his parole, Ramirez remained in Donovan as the primary suspect. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, flanked by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, declared in a nationally televised news conference, "this is suspect number one and, probably, the primary aggressor. I believe we have the right guy."

For two months that was the presumption, until Beck publicly exonerated Ramirez at a press conference announcing the arrest of Louie Sanchez and Marvin Norwood in July 2011. Sanchez and Norwood are still awaiting trial.

In the meantime, Ramirez's life was predictably affected by the public reaction to his arrest. At the time, he said, he was about to start work at a tattoo parlor. Now the 31-year-old father of one is looking for work again. He said the tattoo parlor doesn't want him.

"My family and friends were given the cold shoulder at work just because they were associated with me," he said. "It caused a lot of damage. It was very stressful. A lot of grief. A lot of time lost.

"That's almost a year of my life I lost."

Jose Romero, one of Ramirez's attorneys, said that filing a civil suit against LAPD is a possibility. He said the statute of limitations for suits against a government agency expires sometime in the next two months.

"There's two aspects of the (potential) civil suit," Romero said. "There's false arrest and the defamation aspect of the case. Giovanni was vilified and made out to be public enemy number one in the city of Los Angeles for a long time. It's that stench of labeling that still harms him today. You do Internet searches, despite the fact that he's exonerated and had nothing to do with that tragic beating, he's still looked at as the villain, as the bad guy. That will affect him for the rest of his life. Employment, background records will haunt him forever."

At the very least, Ramirez said, Beck could apologize.

"I think it's ridiculous that they won't apologize," he said.

Ramirez said as much in a televised press conference upon his release from prison. That prompted LAPD to release a statement of its own more than 300 words long.

"Los Angeles Police Department stands by its actions in the arrest and incarceration of Giovanni Ramirez," it read in part. "In this case, the LAPD followed standard, established police procedures throughout the investigation. Giovanni Ramirez was never prosecuted for the beating of Bryan Stow."

Asked about the Ramirez incident now, LAPD spokesman Lt. Andy Neiman said the agency continues to maintain it handled the case properly.

As for the threat of legal action?

"People file lawsuits all the time against us," he said.

"I don't know how often, but that's what the city attorney is for."

Frank Mateljan, a spokesman for City Attorney Carmen Trutanich's office, said the agency has not heard anything about a potential lawsuit.

"If and when something is filed, we will certainly take a look. Our mandate is to defend the city, if there are any claims filed against the department or the city."

For Ramirez and others, reminders of the incident are everywhere. The Stow family filed a civil lawsuit against the Dodgers, seeking an estimated $50 million to cover medical expenses. Stow's brain damage has profoundly affected his speech and memory, according to multiple reports, and he remains in therapy at a rehabilitation facility in Northern California.

Under these circumstances, it was a small surprise to see Ramirez in the stands on opening day.

"We came up with the idea of maybe he had this thing, (an) aura over him, about Dodger Stadium," Lara said. "We said, `Why don't we go Opening Day?' (Ramirez) said, you know what, I've never been there. That would be a perfect time."

Romero bought three box seats behind home plate - one for him, one for Lara, another for their client. It was the first Major League Baseball game that Ramirez, never a sports fan by his own admission, ever attended.

He picked a good game.

The Beach Boys performed "Surfer Girl" as well as the National Anthem.

Several members of the 1962 Dodgers team, the first to play at Dodger Stadium, walked onto the field for a pregame ovation. The Dodgers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 2-1 on a tie-breaking home run in the eighth inning.